1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to intelligent backup systems, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for intelligently backing up selected data from a host computer""s main storage drive to prevent loss of data or user productivity.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, personal computers have become an integral necessity in both the work and home environment. For many people, personal computers have become their main communication system, which can be used for sending and receiving electronic mail (i.e., e-mail), transferring files over a local area network (LAN), and communicating over the world wide web via the Internet. Because people have placed such a high level of dependence on their personal computers, when a failure (i.e., crash) to either a hardware or software component occurs, the user will generally suffer greatly in terms of productivity loss.
Many times, failures to either hardware or software components can lead to the complete loss of personal data, which many times cannot be recovered using standard data recovery tools. In efforts to remedy the severity of such data loss, many people perform routine backups of there entire hard drives or files. In this manner, if an unrecoverable failure were to occur, the user would only lose the data that was created between the last backup operation and the unrecoverable failure.
Unfortunately, relying on periodic backups of a computer""s storage drives (i.e., hard drives) does not eliminate the loss in productivity suffered while the failure is being attended to, and the need to reconstruct all of the lost data that was created between the last backup and the failure. To further complicate the reconstruction process, most of today""s computer software products have to be installed using complex installation software that is designed to place each component of the software product in the correct system folder location, registry file, startup files, etc., in order to preserve proper functionality with the computer""s operating system. As a result, even though the entire contents of a backup can be retrieved from the backup media, the restoring of a subsequently repaired storage drive will require a substantial amount of reconstruction.
Although the restoration of failed storage devices can sometimes be a trivial process when only a minor number of programs are re-installed onto the failed computer system, most of today""s computer systems use a wide number of programs, each requiring custom installation for proper operation. Furthermore, because most computer users purchase, update and modify computer programs over the Internet, it is often impossible to reconstruct the original state of all programs, patches or executables that are loaded onto a computer without keeping detailed logs of where each component was acquired. As a result, when attempts to reconstruct a user""s computer system are attempted, many of the originally installed software programs or components may not be installed because they are no longer available or supported by the original supplier.
In spite of the fact that most failures that are a result of a hardware malfunction or a software problem can be fixed, either by complete replacement or by performing repairs, users still experience data losses that produce harsh penalties in productivity or require significant down time. That is, even if users systematically backs up their system regularly, some amount of data will be lost between the time of the last back up and the subsequent restoration. In certain circumstances, even if only a small amount of data is lost, that small amount may translate into many hours of reconstruction time. Furthermore, if the lost data was a time sensitive piece of data, reconstruction over many hours or days may not be acceptable.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for an intelligent backup system and method for implementing the system to protect data of a computer""s storage drive in case a system failure occurs. There is also a need for a system and a method for implementing the system that will enable a user to continue working from the intelligently backed-up data after a system failure occurs, and then restore the failed system after the system failure is intelligently identified and repaired.
Broadly speaking, the present invention fills these needs by providing an intelligent backup and restore system that prevents downtime productivity losses, and assists the user in trouble shooting the failure, repairing the failure if possible, and restoring the failed system back to its pre-failure condition. All of these functionalities are provided to the user through a user friendly graphical user interface that helps the user resume his or her normal computer use by booting to a peripheral storage device (that holds an intelligently backup data set) while the failure is remedied. It should be appreciated that the present invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method, or a computer readable medium. Several inventive embodiments of the present invention are described below.
In one embodiment, a method for protecting data of a computer system is disclosed. The method includes: (a) connecting a peripheral storage device to the computer system; (b) preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (c) selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (d) creating a spare tire by copying the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system to the storage media of the peripheral storage device using a file-based copying scheme; (e) enabling peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use; (f) determining whether a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables booting to the hard drive; and (g) booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device using the spare tire. In this manner, the user can resume uninterrupted work from the peripheral storage device while the hard drive failure is repaired.
In another embodiment, a system is disclosed for protecting a user""s productivity upon detecting a failure with a storage media of the user""s computer system, and the computer system has a peripheral storage device connected thereto. The system includes a removable storage media that is configured to be placed into the peripheral storage device. The removable storage media is formatted to be a protection enabled media and is configured to contain a backup set of data including a default set of boot files and operating system files, and the backup set of data is substantially continuously backed up on a schedule. The system further includes a spare tire launcher that may be launched when the failure with the storage media of the user""s computer system occurs to enable the user to re-boot to the peripheral storage device which contains a selected duplicate image of contents of the storage media of the user""s computer system.
In yet a further embodiment, an apparatus for protecting data of a computer system that has a peripheral storage device connected thereto is disclosed. The apparatus includes: (a) means for preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (b) means for selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (c) means for creating a spare tire backup set by performing a file-based copying operation that transfers the backup set of data to the storage media of the peripheral storage device even when the storage media of the peripheral storage device is different than a media of the hard drive; (d) means for enabling peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use after the means for creating the spare tire is complete; (e) means for determining whether a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables booting to the hard drive; and (f) means for booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device.
In still another embodiment, a computer readable media containing program instructions for protecting data of a computer system that has a peripheral storage device connected thereto is disclosed. The computer readable media contains: (a) program instructions for causing preparation of a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (b) program instructions for enabling a selection of a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (c) program instructions for enabling a generation of a spare tire backup that includes the backup set of data to the storage media of the peripheral storage device; (d) program instructions for enabling the peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use; and (e) program instructions that enable booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device when a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables booting to the hard drive.
In another embodiment, a system for protecting data stored in a primary hard disk drive of a computer system is disclosed. The method includes: (a) connecting a secondary peripheral storage device to the computer system; (b) preparing a storage media of the secondary peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (c) selecting a backup set of data stored in the primary hard disk drive of the computer system, and the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (d) creating a spare tire backup by performing a file-based copying operation of the backup set of data from the primary hard disk drive of the computer system to the storage media of the secondary peripheral storage device; (e) enabling the secondary peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the primary hard disk drive of the computer system during normal use; and (f) booting the computer system from the secondary peripheral storage device when a failure occurs with the primary hard disk drive which is detected by a system BIOS of the computer system.
A system for protecting a user""s productivity upon detecting a failure with a storage media of the user""s computer system is also disclosed in another embodiment. The system includes a secondary peripheral storage device having a storage media that is formatted to be a protection enabled media and contains a backup set of data including a default set of boot files and operating system files. The backup set of data is configured to be substantially continuously backed up on a schedule. The system also includes a host adapter BIOS that is configured to receive an indication from a system BIOS that the failure has occurred with the storage media of the user""s computer system. The host adapter BIOS is further configured to provide an option of re-booting the user""s computer system from the secondary peripheral storage device. The system further includes a computer user interface for providing options of repairing the storage media, restoring the storage media, or continue working from the secondary peripheral storage device until the storage media is repaired and restored.
Yet another embodiment of a system for protecting a user""s productivity upon detecting a failure with a storage media of a primary drive of the user""s computer system is disclosed. The system includes a secondary peripheral storage device having a storage media that is formatted to be a protection enabled media and contains a backup set of data. The backup set of date includes a default set of boot files and operating system files, and the backup set of data is internally backed up. The primary drive has a modified MBR sector, a signature on a second sector following the modified MBR sector, and a continuation of a boot management code that is also within the modified MBR sector. The continuation of the boot management code is contained in sectors beginning with a third sector following the second sector counting in an LBA format. In this manner, when the failure occurs with the primary drive, the boot management code will identify drives connected to the computer system and enable booting to the secondary peripheral storage device upon re-boot.
Advantageously, the backup and restore system of the present invention is designed to intelligently protect a user""s data and productivity upon experiencing a hard disk failure. In one embodiment, once the backup and restore system is installed and set-up, the backup operations are performed in an incremental fashion (e.g., after the initial full backup, only those files that have changed from one backup to another will be backed up) to a peripheral storage device media. It should be appreciated that this incremental backup technique provides a powerful level of performance enhancement over conventional backup systems.
Most importantly, the intelligent backup and restore system of the present invention will substantially eliminate the tremendous downtime that is typical of when a hard disk crash is experienced and no backup or simple conventional backup techniques are used. As a result, user productivity will no longer suffer when hard disk failures occur. In addition, the embodiments of the present invention also assist the user in attempting to repair of the crashed hard disk. However, if the crashed hard disk is not repairable, the system will automatically detect when a new hard disk is added to the user""s system, and then assists in partitioning and formatting the hard disk for the user. When a new hard disk is prepared or the old hard disk is repaired, the system will restore the operating system and data files to their current state as now present on the peripheral storage device media. Upon re-booting, the newly restored hard disk will once again become the boot device. Another advantage of the present invention is that the peripheral storage device media does not have to be identical to that of the system""s hard drive. More specifically, even though most computer systems implement IDE/EIDE hard drives, the peripheral storage device (that is internal or external) does not have to be an IDE/EIDE drive. Although they can be the same, they may be of any type, standard, or size other than that of the computer system. Further yet, because the peripheral storage device media may be of a different kind and size than that of the computer system, when the spare tire backup is created, a file-based copying operation is advantageously implemented.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrating by way of example the principles of the invention.